Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

Imagine something unlikely! There is one television programme the whole family enjoy, but everyone watches it differently. So – you are resting upstairs and watching it on the portable set in the bedroom. Your partner is still at work and watching it on a laptop in the office. Your son is at university and watching...

The Church Commissioners for England has published its 2023 Stewardship Report, outlining the key steps taken to deliver on its responsible investment strategy focused on ‘Respect for People and Respect for the Planet’. In 2023, the Church Commissioners restricted several oil and gas companies from investment as part of the climate change motion passed by...

Everyday Christmas Prayer for December 2024 Christmas Trees Nolite Timere The Christmas Kitchen Welcome ** Everyday Christmas (Mal 4:2, Mt 1:23) Light a candle, Look into the light, Pray. Light and life to all He brings, Risen with healing in His wings As the flame rises, Smooth, bright, Know the comfort of Christ In the...

Christmas shopping this year will be done by two sorts of shopper: those who intend to pay – and those who don’t. And the ‘those who don’t’ category is now so huge that stores across the country have been reporting on average two thefts each and every minute. According to the Office for National Statistics...

Over the decades the decorations on my home Christmas tree have come and gone. From an eclectic colourful mix of baubles and home-made items when the children were young, to a radical change to ‘contemporary’ and ‘sophisticated’. It didn’t last long, as quite frankly they seemed a bit dull, lifeless and lacking real meaning. We quite rapidly...

Have you ever stopped to consider that the very first martyr of the Christian Church (Stephen died c 35 AD) was a deacon?  (But no, he wasn’t worked to death by his church.)  It was Stephen, one of the first seven deacons of the Christian Church.  He’d been appointed by the apostles to look after...

What are you buying your friends for Christmas this year? If you are tempted by ‘socially responsible’ gifts that involve you NOT giving your friends anything at all, but instead giving your money to a charity ‘in their name’, you may wish to think again. Such gifts as goats in Ghana or chickens in Chad...

Everyone knows that it was on the feast of Stephen that ‘good king Wenceslas looked on’.  After all, it’s in a Christmas carol – but why? There’s nothing about Christmas in it: a splendid young page who rustled up some flesh, wine and logs, an old man out in the snow (’deep and crisp and...

The Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell plans to teach the Lord’s Prayer across the North of England throughout 2025, a priority of his vision for Faith in the North. Archbishop Stephen is to visit dioceses in the Northern Province of the C of E where he will be sharing the relevance of the Lord’s Prayer...

Christmas is a great time of year, but it’s not without its challenges! After one family had put up 250,000 Christmas lights outside, they didn’t dare boil a kettle for fear of blowing the system! The challenge of over-indulging We all remember the episode of the Vicar of Dibley, where she had to consume four...

Most of us probably know that on December 26th (the Feast of Stephen) ‘Good king Wenceslas’ looked out, writes David Winter. We probably also know that the snow lay round about, ‘deep and crisp and even’. Beyond that, he’s just someone in a carol that’s not often sung nowadays. However, Wenceslas was a real person,...

If you ring your local Town Council or Library, they should be able to point in the direction of where to find the details…. You might look for events such as: Cathedral (or local large church) Christmas concerts Craft fayres Present wrapping Carol singing in your community Local charity initiatives that could use help Singing...